A Flight of Arrows by A.J. MacKenzie (mobi reader android .txt) 📕

‘No more than was shown to Sir Edmund Bray,’ Merrivale said quietly.

From further along the causeway came a loud splash, the sound of something heavy hitting the water, followed by men shouting. Warwick and Merrivale ran towards the scene to find Nicholas Courcy climbing out of the river below the broken bridge, dragging with him the heavily armoured semi-conscious body of Roger Mortimer. There was a pause while Courcy heaved the younger man onto his side, then unlaced his backplate, peeled it off and thumped him on the back. After a few hard blows, Mortimer gagged and then rolled over and began to spew river water.

‘What happened?’ Merrivale asked.

‘He fell into the river,’ Courcy said. ‘Luckily he landed in the shallows and I was able to pull him out. If he had gone into the deep stream, that would have been the end of him.’ Weighed down by eighty pounds of mail and plate, Mortimer would have drowned before anyone could rescue him.

Hugh Despenser walked up to Mortimer and looked down at him. ‘Are you all right?’

Mortimer retched again, and sat up, dragging air into his lungs. He nodded. Despenser turned on his heel and walked away. Mortimer started to say something, but choked and vomited again. The herald waited.

‘I did not fall,’ Mortimer gasped finally. ‘Someone pushed me. They hit me from behind and shoved me into the river.’

‘Did you see who it was?’ Merrivale asked.

‘It was that bastard Despenser! Or one of his men. By God, they should have hanged the whole bloody family and made an end to them.’

‘Easy,’ said the herald, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘You have had a narrow escape, Sir Roger. Go back to camp and get some rest. Let the carpenters get on with the job. There will be work for us all in the morning.’

Slowly, his clothes and armour streaming water, Mortimer rose to his feet and walked with as much dignity as he could muster back along the torchlit causeway towards the camp.

Men hurried past, carpenters shouldering heavy wooden beams. The thump of hammers and rasp of saws echoed through the night air across the dark marshes. Warwick went down to the water’s edge to check on progress. Merrivale turned to Courcy. ‘Did you see what happened?’

‘The devil I did,’ said Courcy. ‘One moment he was standing beside me, the next he was down in the river. I didn’t see anyone push him, if that is what you mean.’

Merrivale studied him. ‘Alchemist, now engineer,’ he said. ‘You’ve many strings to your bow, Sir Nicholas.’

Courcy grinned. ‘I’ve been a shipmaster, too, and I worked for a while as a coiner at the mint. I studied the liberal arts at Balliol College for a year, until the master threw me out. Yes, I’ve turned my hand to plenty of things in my time.’ He paused for a moment. ‘None of them, I would say, with any conspicuous success.’

‘What do you think happened to the gunpowder?’

‘Like I said, it’s these cursed looters. There’s nothing they won’t steal.’ Merrivale could not see Courcy’s face in the flickering shadows, but he could hear the humour in his voice.

‘I have another question for you. When you found Bray’s body, you claimed you were the first ones into that sector after the fighting. But some of Holland’s men say they were there before you. Did you see them?’

‘Ah, the Lanky boys.’ Courcy’s voice held a mixture of admiration and despair. ‘No, I didn’t see them, but it wouldn’t surprise me, Sir Herald. It wouldn’t surprise me at all. I count myself a pretty fair forager, but those fellows make light-fingeredness into an art. Blink and they’ll steal the eyebrows off your face. Yes, there’s a fair chance they were there before us. That could explain why we found nothing worth stealing,’ he added wryly.

He looked at Merrivale. ‘Do you think they might have killed young Bray? Perhaps he caught them in the act of looting and threatened to report them.’

‘Would they really kill an English man-at-arms? One of their own side?’

‘The only side those vultures are on is their own. They’d do it, herald, if it suited them, and they wouldn’t think twice about it. They’re not like the rest of us, you see. They’re not the usual ploughboys and herdsmen and apprentices who took the bounty so they could see the world and make a little money on the side. Holland’s men have been with him for every campaign for the past five years, France and Prussia and Spain. They’ve been at war too long. They’re not just good at inflicting misery; they enjoy it. But they would not have left that great ruby ring behind.’

The vehemence in his voice was quite out of character. ‘You sound angry,’ Merrivale said.

There was a short pause, and then Courcy laughed. ‘Angry?’ he said in his usual light tone. ‘Bless you, herald, but no. Life is a beautiful thing, and I don’t propose to waste a minute of it on something so futile as anger. All the same, I wish someone would do something about those bastards. They give good honest pillagers like myself a bad name.’

Back at the camp, Merrivale made his way to Roger Mortimer’s tent. He found the young knight lying on his cot; he had removed his armour, but was still in his wet arming doublet and hose, staring up at the wind-ruffled canvas. A single candle burned on a wooden chest beside the cot.

‘How do you feel?’ the herald asked.

‘Like I have swallowed half the river. I still have a gutful of water.’

‘You said someone pushed you. Are you quite certain of that?’

‘Yes,’ said Mortimer without moving. ‘I am quite certain.’

‘Why would anyone wish to do such a thing?’

‘To settle old scores, of course. Everyone hates the Mortimers.’

‘That is not true,’ Merrivale said quietly. ‘The prince, for example, does not hate you. I think he is actually rather fond of you.’

Mortimer gave a snort of disgust. ‘That